Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board chief executive Kevin Lavery has published an honest assessment of the state of the health and care system in the region.

Mr Lavery has produced the report having been with the ICB for almost a year in order to outline the challenges faced across the system and how some of these will be addressed in the years to come.

Opening the report, Mr Lavery says: “I want to be up front with you. We are a system approaching a cliff edge and will need to make fundamental changes to avoid falling off.”

And this frank and honest tone is adopted throughout the report, with Mr Lavery keen to be up front about the scale of the challenges ahead.